


what passes between us (magic)

by fallencrest



Category: X-Men (Movies), X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe - 2000s, Alternate Universe - Harry Potter Setting, Chess, M/M, Muggle/Wizard Relations
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-07
Updated: 2014-06-07
Packaged: 2018-02-03 16:49:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,825
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1751699
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fallencrest/pseuds/fallencrest
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A Hogwarts AU fic featuring an ensemble cast, in which Charles and Erik talk house unity and muggle relations, get caught up in one another, play chess, and Charles isn't entirely sure that the Erik he knows is the same one the other students whisper strange rumours about. Most people think Charles should have given up that first day when the Sorting Hat announced their separation to the islands of different houses, but Charles never wants to let go of his friends too easily and he isn't sure he'll ever want to let go of Erik. </p>
<p>(Set in the Harry Potter universe, in the early 2000s, after the second war with Voldemort.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	what passes between us (magic)

**Author's Note:**

> _Note on spoilers for DOFP and whether the fic has a happy ending:_ This fic is intended to roughly follow character arcs per XMFC canon (though the ending isn't quite so bleak). It's been sat on my harddrive since 2011, so there are no spoilers for DOFP.

Charles sits in a compartment full of his fellow first years, happily talking about houses and guessing what tests they’ll have to do at the Sorting. Hank, a tall boy with dark hair and glasses, has a slightly smug look on his face as though he knows exactly what the Sorting procedure is but he refuses to share. Charles doesn’t mind. It’s fun hearing what other people come up with. 

The train has just started moving and he feels so happy, allowing hope to swell up inside him, because he’s finally going, finally, to Hogwarts. His heart had sung in his chest as the butler had closed the door to the mansion behind him that morning and Charles had known he wouldn’t have to go home for months. _I’m going, I’m going, I’m finally going._

The door to the compartment slides open and a boy steps inside. He looks like a first year too, though Charles can’t see much of his face as his eyes seem to be fixed on the floor. 

“Is that seat free?” the boy asks, raising his hand slightly toward the one remaining space in the compartment.

“Yes, of course, do join us. Are you a first year, too?” Charles asks, smiling at the boy. 

The boy takes the seat and only then looks up at Charles, who’s sat next to him, “Yes. Are you all,” the boy hesitates, “wizards, like me?”

“Of course,” Charles says. The boy is a little taller than Charles, he suspects, though it barely shows from the way he sits slumped in the seat. 

“Are you a Muggleborn then?” asks Raven, eyeing the boy with interest.

“What?”

“Your parents - they aren’t wizards, too, are they?” Raven asks, frowning a little.

“Oh,” the boy says, staring at the ground again, “no. They, um, weren’t.” He swings his feet a little, uncomfortably.

Charles wants to say something comforting. Maybe about how his mother is dead, too, but Hank cuts across him and says: “That must have been weird for you then - when your magic manifested. I once ran away from a boy at school and ended up in a tree, miles away, by the time I realised what I was doing. If I hadn’t know that my dad was a wizard I don’t know what I would have done.”

For some reason, this talk of powers manifesting only seems to make the boy more uncomfortable.

“I used to blow stuff up!” a blonde boy, called Alex, exclaims, “I still do, sometimes, actually,” he adds, a little abashed. 

“I’m sure they’ll teach you how to control it,” Charles says, smiling at Alex before turning to the new boy again. “I’ve just realised that I’ve not introduced myself.” Charles says, finally managing to coax the boy’s gaze up to meet his, “I’m Charles Xavier and this,” he says, gesturing first to the girl sat opposite him, “is Raven Darkholme, we grew up together and she has a very special talent,” as he says this last bit, Charles watches as Raven’s hair changes colour and grows out, and her eyes turn amber, and looks over to see the new boy’s face light up in genuine awe and fascination. 

“And this,” Charles says, moving on to the boy next to her, “is Hank McCoy,” Hank smiles that small smile he has and raises a hand in greeting. “Armando Munoz,” Charles says, indicating the black boy next to Hank, who responds with a grin. “Alex Summers,” Charles says next, gesturing to the boy in the next seat along. Alex, the blonde boy who blows things up, looks at the newcomer curiously but makes no sign of greeting. 

Charles then turns to the two others sat on the same side of the compartment as he and Erik, “on the end there is Angel Salvadore.” 

Angel says “hi” in response and smiles. 

“And next to me is Sean Cassidy.” 

Sean says “hey” in a slightly breathy mumble and looks at the boy from under a mop of ginger hair. 

“So, what’s your name?” Charles asks the new boy, finally. 

The boy appears to be studying his companions carefully, as though measuring them up. “Erik Lehnsherr,” he replies, returning his gaze to Charles.

“And what house do you think you’ll be in, Erik?”

Erik looks towards the door, then back at Charles, “I’ve read about it and I’m not sure. Slytherin, perhaps.” As Erik says this, there is an intake of breath in the compartment, “but I think I’d rather Gryffindor.” There are a few smiles at that. 

“I’ve always favoured Ravenclaw, myself,” Hank says. “What about you?” he asks Raven.

“I’ve always felt more like a leopard personally,” she says. “Because I can change my spots,” she adds, her hair shortening and becoming a leopard print pattern. “But, really, I’m not sure. I hear it runs in families.”

“Not always!” Armando puts in, “my dad was in Ravenclaw and his sister was in Hufflepuff and I don’t know if my grandparents were in the same houses, either.” He shrugs. 

The conversation carries on in that vein for most of the journey. They discuss the subjects that they are most looking forward to and it becomes apparent that Hank has read just about every book available on Hogwarts and its customs. Alex and Sean on the other hand, both have a strong and colourful view of the school as told by their family members. Angel is quiet, where Armando has a great sense of humour, chipping in easily, but not speaking much about himself. Erik is reserved but occasionally shows that he, like Hank, has done a degree of research into the school. 

About halfway through the journey, a dark-haired girl enters and asked if any of them have seen a prefect. They shake their heads and she frowns then asks if they are first years, too. Charles tells her that they are and she smiles at him. “Me too,” she says, “I’m Moira McTaggart. I noticed something very weird going on in one of the other compartments and I thought I ought to tell the relevant people but I can’t find a prefect anywhere.” She lets out a sigh. 

When Charles sees her pass by again later, he pulls open the door and calls after her to see if she’s found her prefect.

“Oh, yes, thank you.” She is about to move away, Charles sees, when she stops again to say, “Shouldn’t you put your robes on? I think we’re almost there.” 

“Oh, right, thanks.” He says, a little embarrassed not to have thought of it himself, “I’ll see you at the Sorting?”

Moira smiles. 

“I’m Charles Xavier, by the way.” He offers her his hand and she shakes it, seeming a little surprised by the courtesy.

When he gets back into the compartment, he sees that the others have already begun to change into their Hogwarts robes; all except Erik, who holds his robes bundled up in his arms and is making to leave the compartment. 

They all look rather silly in their robes, Charles thinks, once they‘ve got them on, and Sean’s are a good few inches too long, he observes. Most of them had seemed rather more comfortable in their Muggle clothes. It is different for Erik though, when he comes back. Erik had obviously changed in a bathroom or an empty compartment and he walks back in wearing his wizard’s robes with his head held a good few inches higher than it had previously been. He shoves his Muggle clothes back into his trunk and sits down with them again seeming, Charles thinks, almost like a different person. No one else seems to have noticed the change however and most of them are now gazing raptly out of the window as if expecting to catch a glimpse of the castle at any second. 

 

*

The Sorting is not half so terrifying as Sean’s brothers had told him it would be. It is just a hat, after all. Charles watches as, one by one, his friends from the train are sorted along with the rest of the new first years. He is surprised, as he waits, to feel anxiety blossoming within him. After all, he isn’t sure what the hat actually _does_ to decide what house you should be in. 

It is terrifying, when Charles finally puts it on, to hear the hat speak inside his head. He thinks it must really be _inside his head_ because it definitely only ever announced the house it was placing the other students in aloud.

“Ponderous,” the hat says, “very ponderous. You care a lot for others, I see. In fact, I would say you care a little too much at times. And you are loyal, so perhaps Hufflepuff would be a good fit. But you are clever too, very clever. And you are passionate, just. My, this is a tricky one, though, on the whole, I would say-”

_Wait,_ Charles thinks, willing the hat to listen, _wait_. He needs to ask the hat something, he needs to know. _Put me in whichever house you want but I want to know first why you put Erik Lehnsherr in Slytherin._

“Erik Lehnsherr?” the hat asks as though it has no notion of whom Charles was speaking, then it exclaims “Oh! That one. Hmmm, well, because he asked me, too.” Its tone is nonchalant, uncaring, “In the end, our choices are what make us who we are - or so they say - and that was Erik Lehnsherr’s choice. Now, are you quite ready for me to announce your house?” 

The hat barely pauses before it yells “Hufflepuff” to a sea of cheers. 

“You were up there a long time,” says the girl he sits down next to when he finally reaches the Hufflepuff table. She is one of the new first years, too, and Charles had seen her sorted. Her name is Ororo Munroe, he remembers. She has dark skin but her hair is a silver grey and seems to glow a little in the candlelight.. 

“Yes, yes, I suppose I was,” says Charles, looking over at Erik who is sat at the end of the Slytherin table, not talking to anyone. Angel had been sorted into Slytherin, too. Moira, on the other hand, had been sorted into Gryffindor along with Armando, Alex, and Sean. Hank had been sorted into Ravenclaw just as he’d hoped, as had Raven. Charles wonders then if he should have asked the hat to put him in Gryffindor or Ravenclaw along with his friends. He could even, he supposes, have joined Erik and Angel in Slytherin. He is ambitious, he knows, in his way. But he looks around the table then, at the smiling faces of the students in his own house and he knows it shouldn’t make a difference. It is perfectly possible to be friends with people in other houses and he’s sure he’ll make all kinds of new friends in Hufflepuff.

*

The first week passes by in a whirl of classes. Everything is new and wonderful and even the less eventful classes are fascinating. He has Defence Against the Dark Arts with the Ravenclaws on Monday and smiles across the room at Raven and Hank and, on the way out of class, he and Hank discuss the impact that the wars against Voldemort have no doubt had on magical education and the ideologies behind it. Charles smiles because he’s never met another boy his own age who he can talk about things like this with. But, at breakfast the next morning, when they happen to enter the Great Hall together at the same time and begin their conversation again, Hank seems to get a little nervous as they approach the Ravenclaw table together and says, “Charles, don’t you think you should go and sit down?”

“Oh,” Charles says, “yes, I suppose so. Maybe we can continue our discussion later?” Hank just smiles that small, lopsided smile he has and Charles changes course to go and join his own house for breakfast. 

Logan looks up at him as he approaches the table. “Getting chummy with a Ravenclaw?” he asks, raising one eyebrow to convey his scepticism. 

“I don’t think houses make much difference, to be honest.” Charles replies, taking a seat beside Logan and helping himself to porridge. 

But, apparently, he’s the only one who thinks so. 

*

On Wednesday, he has his first class with the Slytherins. It’s Transfiguration and Charles is careful to sit near Erik, even though it means leaving Ororo and Jean who he’d been talking to outside the room before the class started. It’s worth it though when Erik sees Charles and beams at him, a big, genuine grin breaking across his face. 

“I didn’t think you’d want to speak to me anymore,” Erik confides later, as they work together to transfigure a matchstick, “after the Sorting Hat put me in Slytherin.” 

Charles doesn’t say anything about how he knows that Erik chose Slytherin - chose it, apparently, even though he believed it would mean he’d lose Charles’ friendship. Instead he just smiles and says, “It doesn’t matter to me what house you’re in.”

Erik smiles that smile again, broad and open, but, when they leave the class, Charles can hear Erik’s fellow Slytherins asking him why he’d paired up with that Hufflepuff instead of them.

“That Hufflepuff,” Charles overhears Erik reply, “was the only one in the class who managed to do anything to his matchstick other than set it on fire.” 

It was true - Charles and Erik were the only pair who had come anywhere close to transfiguring their matchsticks into needles and, between them, they had done it easily. It had been as much Erik’s work as his own though, Charles reflects, and he wonders why Erik hadn't mentioned that to his Slytherin friends.

*

Charles is aware, by the end of the first week, that if he wants to keep his friends from the train together, he’s going to have to find a place of them to meet and an excuse to do it. When he mentions it to his new friends in Hufflepuff, they seem surprised that he cares enough about a group of people whom he spoke to on a train for a few hours to want to go to all this effort for them. 

“But they’re my friends,” Charles tells them, with a defiant frown. 

“You spoke to them for a few hours, bub. They’re really not your friends.” Logan replies, as he mercilessly beats Scott at chess, his knight smashing Scott's king over with an excess of malice. 

It was true that Charles had never had any friends before Hogwarts - except Raven, who’d lived with him growing up, - but he’d talked for hours with them in that train compartment and he felt as though he understood them. They’d all been so anxious, so afraid and yet so much themselves that Charles can't help but think they'd formed a bond that day that is too important to be so easily broken. 

The result of his determination to keep them all together is that, on Sunday morning, an owl lands on each of the Hogwart’s house tables. The one on the Slytherin table is addressed to E Lehnsherr and A Salvadore. Hank and Raven receive the same message on the Ravenclaw table and a third owl delivers the message to his many friends in Gryffindor. All the messages are the same: _Please come to the study corner in the library at 3pm this afternoon. We can do homework together and also talk about our first week. I’ve invited everyone from our compartment on the train and Moira, too. Hope to see you there. Sincerely, Charles Xavier_

*

Charles arrives at the library half an hour early that afternoon and feels nervous and afraid that no one will come. At 5 minutes to 3, Moira arrives, shortly followed by Raven and Hank who appear to have walked up there together. The other three Gryffindors all arrive together, laughing and joking to stern looks from the librarian, Madame Pince. 

Charles feels elated but, in the back of his mind, he still wonders where Angel is and Erik, where’s Erik? 

They open their Charms books, discussing Professor Flitwick’s homework, and compare their levels of success in performing the _Wingardium Leviosa_ charm. 

“Alex set his feather on fire,” Armando says, grinning over at Alex who looks a little abashed. 

It’s only five past three, Charles tells himself, as they all continue to exchange anecdotes and then he hears Erik’s voice, forming an apology for his lateness, he looks over his shoulder and breaks into a grin. 

Angel shows up, too, though she’s a little later, and they all sit there and just talk about their first week at Hogwarts as though they were all on that train again, before the Sorting, before any of this happened. They’re all just kids, just young witches and wizards, and they’re all friends. 

“Can we do this every week?” Moira asks, smiling, as they pack away their books. 

That first meeting, they stay until dinner is being served in the Great Hall and they’re all surprised at the time.

Everyone agrees to meet the next week and they walk downstairs together. Part way down a moving staircase, Erik catches Charles’ eye and they fall into step with one another. “Thank you,” Erik says, “for inviting me.”

“Anytime, my friend,” Charles says, smiling. 

Even just one week later, Charles can see that the Erik Lehnsherr standing next to him is a very different one from the boy he’d met on the train. He doesn’t stare at the floor anymore. His posture is better, though he still drags his feet a little as he walks. He seems purposeful and, Charles thinks, curiously powerful. 

*

They have their weekly study sessions all through first year and, though some people look at them oddly when they leave their common rooms every Sunday afternoon, it might as well just be any other student club. 

Over the summer, Charles gives everyone his address and tells them to write but they rarely do. Moira sends a postcard from a holiday in Greece once and Hank sends him a letter early in the holiday enquiring about Charles’ stance on the new werewolf legislation under consideration by the Ministry of Magic. Charles writes back saying that he doesn’t think that it goes far enough in offering werewolves equal rights. Hank sends no reply. 

Raven is there over the summer, of course, but she’s not very talkative and Charles wonders when they grew apart and how it happened but he can’t say anything to her about it - as though he fears that voicing his concerns aloud will make them come true.

He longs for a letter from Erik. He fears that Erik’s home life might be as drear and hopeless as his own but, as Erik had given him no address, he can only hope that Erik will write so that he can return a reply with Erik's owl. No letter comes though and Charles only becomes more worried about his friend. The others, he thinks, probably have someone to talk to who is better company than Charles but he hates to think of Erik, alone and friendless and god knows where. 

*

They return from the summer all a little taller than before and most of them have new robes. Only some of them end up in the same compartment on the train this time around but Charles thinks that that’s understandable. He knows that they all have their own lives, their own agendas, and he accepts that. Charles' heart races though, when he steps through onto Platform 9 ¾ and immediately sees Erik silhouetted in the train window. He and Raven board the train together and head straight for Erik’s compartment.

Erik is thinner now, Charles thinks, gaunter than last year, and he’s staring at the floor again. He’s wearing the same old Muggle clothes he’d worn last year, Charles thinks - though he doesn't really know how he can be sure that they are the same clothes at all. Charles doesn’t ask if Erik’s had a good summer, instead he just sits down opposite him in the compartment and asks if he’s looking forward to starting his second year.

Moira joins them in the compartment soon enough, and so do Armando and Alex. The others are all elsewhere though: Sean dozing off surrounded by strangers, Angel with a clique of fellow Slytherins, Hank animatedly discussing politics with a Ravenclaw prefect who ought to be patrolling the corridors. A new first year girl called Marie joins them in the compartment and Charles engages her in conversation about Hogwarts whilst Erik eyes her curiously. 

Charles watches Erik transform again, as he dons his wizard’s robes, from a scared boy into one possessed of power, confidence, and defiance. Charles doesn’t like the transformation quite as much this time but he still can’t help but smile.

They disperse again, of course, after the train, but they all show up - uninvited - to the library on the first Sunday of term, though most of them seem half-surprised that the others are actually there. 

They are kept busy with homework and classes and friends in their respective houses but they still show up nearly every week and Charles watches them all grow and change and feels absurdly grateful that he knows them all. 

*

Third year is more difficult. They return from that summer, all seeming far from the children they were two years ago when they’d first met and now there are Hogsmeade weekends to compete with and Erik and Charles are the only two in the group who don’t have permission slips. And then there’s Quiddditch: suddenly, everyone seems to have joined their house team and Gryffindor practice is on Sunday afternoons and some of the matches taking place then, too.

They move the meetings to Tuesday afternoons, 4:30 ‘til 6, half an hour shorter than their previous meetings and, occasionally, people still don’t show.

In November, Angel stops coming all together and when Charles spots her in a corridor a few weeks later and asks she says “You just don’t get it do you? I can’t be seen with you. Everyone looks at me funny. All my friends. I don’t need this, Charles.” 

“We could be your friends, too.” Charles says, too quietly, as she walks away. Later, he wishes he’d tried harder and held on tighter. He should have been her friend no matter what, he thinks, even if she never wanted to be seen with him. 

Erik still shows every week though and Charles is grateful for that. Something about Erik’s presence reassures him and tells him that he’s doing the right thing in keeping them all together. 

*

“I don’t understand why you hang out with him,” Logan says, on a January afternoon in third year. Charles had just announced that he was going to meet Erik for a game of wizard’s chess and he smiled as he said it. It was a new habit they’d developed, that Christmas, when few students had been around. Sometimes they sat in silence while they played, other times they talked. They never spoke about life at home or why they’d both decided to stay over the holidays when almost everyone else opted to go home to their families - instead they discussed magic and politics. 

“He’s my friend,” Charles tells Logan, stubbornly, though he’s thinking about a troubling discussion he’d had with Erik last week about Muggle-Wizard relations.

“But he’s a Slytherin and he’s also a dick.” Logan frowns as he says this, looking at Charles and Charles can’t explain. He’s noticed that Erik has developed a disregard for others as he's realised how much stronger he is than most other people. It’s strange for Charles to admit it but he knows that he and Erik have more magic coursing through them than most students at Hogwarts. Hank may be incredibly smart and Alex may produce these wild bursts of energy but somehow things just come more easily to the pair of them than they do to the other students. Charles has noticed that both he and Erik pick up new skills with ease and little need for practice. Their wands respond instantly and instinctively and Charles can’t think of a single lesson where he hasn’t been able to perform a task set them.

It’s provoked raised eyebrows from some and enquiries from teachers. He’s even had discussions with professors where they have told him things like “You’re a very powerful wizard, Mr Xavier, and I fear perhaps that you might find some of our lessons a little, well, boring.” But Charles has never found a class boring. Once Charles learns a spell, he seeks to understand how he has accomplished it and to pass on the knowledge to others. Not so for Erik though, apparently: he seems to find others’ inability to perform to his level frustrating and he always asks for extra homework. Charles once overheard Professor McGonagall telling Erik that they simply _did not_ allow third years to attempt spells at such a high level, regardless of their ability. 

“He’s really not a dick,” Charles replies, defiant, “he’s my friend.” But, even as he says it, he knows that the Erik he plays chess with is probably not the same boy who looks disdainfully at his classmates when they add too much valerian root to a potion. 

He wonders about this as he climbs the stairs from the Hufflepuffs’ basement common room but tries not to let himself dwell too long on it. Erik is his friend, he knows, and if Erik can be a little harsh at times it is probably only because it’s how he’s used to being treated. 

All through their game of chess he tells himself that this is the real Erik: the one who smiles when Charles takes his bishop and places his own king in jeopardy simultaneously, the one who says “really, Charles, you make this too easy” and asks Charles what he thinks about the way that the school puts limits on its students knowledge by refusing to teach advanced spells to younger students or allow them access to the Restricted Section of the library. 

Charles recovers from Erik’s check and argues that the school has to have restrictions in place, if only to appease parents. Erik snorts and declares checkmate and says nothing about how he has no parents to appease. _This is the Erik Lehnsherr I know,_ Charles thinks, and he wishes that everyone could see him like this: one part vulnerability to two of brilliance, one of grace and two of discomfort. 

*

The summer of third year sees Erik writing to Charles for the first time. He sends an opening chess move in his first letter. Charles grins like a fool and sends his own move back by return of his owl. Erik’s note had only said:

_Charles_  
Pawn to e4.  
Erik 

But Charles writes back: 

_Dear Erik,_  
I hope you are well. Summer here is very dull. I’ve just written Binns’ essay on Muggle-Wizard relations in the 17th Century. I tried to come up with an interesting angle but ended up just reciting all of the major anti-wizard incidents from the textbook. It’s such a shame that we’re not allowed to practice magic during the holidays or I might be doing something interesting right now. Probably for the best though.  
Your idea of playing chess by post is fantastic. I hear Muggles often do it. Right, well:  
Pawn to e5.  
Sincerely,  
Charles Xavier 

When Erik writes back, he gives another chess move and little else. Charles keeps writing little notes back with his moves and he doesn’t mind much when Erik says nothing other than where he wants to move his next piece. Having the chessboard in his room, with the wizarding chess pieces complaining at being made to stand there for so long without moving, feels like a reassuring sign of Erik’s presence. 

The only time that Erik sends more than his move is when Charles sends a note back with his own owl. 

_Please send replies back with my own owl in future._  
Bishop to d6.  


When Charles tries to make his owl fly back to Erik later in the summer, it stubbornly refuses to leave its perch. He tries not to let it concern him but he can’t help the worry that presses at the corners of his mind when he wonders where Erik is and why he’s so adamant about no one finding him. Having the chess moves is a strange kind of solace though so Charles keeps sending Erik’s owl back to him a few times a week all summer long, taking time to think out what Erik’s next move will be and plan his own every time, only to be proven wrong when Erik does something completely different. 

*

In fourth year, everyone seems to come into themselves in ways that Charles never would have anticipated. Raven starts to become confident and beautiful. Instead of changing her appearance constantly, she settles her appearance into that of a gorgeous blonde. 

By December, she and Hank are dating. 

Hank is more terrifyingly clever than ever and less awkward about it. 

Alex, Armando and Sean are all playing for the Gryffindor Quidditch team where they’d previously only been reserves. Alex hardly ever sets things on fire anymore and he’s developing these ridiculous muscles that no one can quite account for. 

Moira seems to be the chair of every student club in Hogwarts and her marks are among the highest in their year. 

Angel sticks close to her friends in Slytherin and Charles realises that almost every boy in the castle is looking at her with lust in their eyes and, simultaneously, that Angel does not enjoy their stares.

And then there’s Erik, Erik who must have grown three inches over the summer and whose hair, Charles realises, has lightened to a sort of auburn blond from the brown it had been when he was eleven. Erik who, every year, boards the Hogwarts Express as a downtrodden Muggle, has emerged as an even more confident and powerful wizard than ever before. Erik, who still smiles every time he sees Charles, and says “queen to d1”.

Their study group meets more sporadically in fourth year but the others seek Charles out sometimes when they want advice about a spell or a piece of homework and Charles always happily gives it. Hank sometimes comes to Charles to discuss stories in the _Daily Prophet_ and Raven sits there whilst they talk, feigning yawns and occasionally cutting in with something insightful just when they appear to have forgotten that she’s even there. 

*

Fifth year sees prefects appointed. When Charles meets Erik on the train, they see each other’s badges and grin at each other. Erik is already wearing his robes and Charles can see nothing of the defeated boy in his demeanour. 

At the prefects’ meeting at the front of the train, Charles discovers that Hank and Raven are prefects, too, and Moira and Armando for Gryffindor. Ororo is his fellow Hufflepuff prefect and the other Slytherin prefect is a girl called Emma who smiles coldly at them all and doesn’t bother to make small talk.

Charles and Erik patrol the corridors for much of the journey. Some students look askance at them when they see a Slytherin and a Hufflepuff patrolling together but Charles pays them no mind. The only thing which hurts a little is the way his friends from Hufflepuff look at them when Charles passes their compartment but he tries to ignore it and turns to Erik, saying something trivial about how their school work’ll probably get a bit serious from fifth year onwards which Erik cuts down disdainfully saying that he doubts it will be any more challenging. 

*

Their study group meets more often in fifth year than it had the previous year. Though this is mostly out of panic about their OWLs. Charles tells them all that he will be in the library from 3pm on Sundays, just like old times, and the others come along more often than he’d expected they would. 

Erik is the only one who rarely shows up to the study meetings. Charles supposes that that’s because Erik thinks he has nothing to learn from his cohort. He would like to bring it up with him, to say that Erik has more to learn from Armando’s bold, open face and from Sean’s laidback attitude and Alex’s badly hidden self-consciousness than he knows.

Charles still meets with Erik all through fifth year though, and it’s in fifth year that they start having discussions about house unity. 

“I agree with you, Charles,” Erik says, one evening as they play chess in an empty classroom which overlooks the lake, “I think it’s preposterous to divide wizards up according to an arbitrary set of qualities. Wizards should be encouraged to stick together, not to form factions. Besides, very few students are suited to one house alone. Of course, there are those in Slytherin who would find it difficult to fit in elsewhere,” Erik orders his bishop across the board to take one of Charles’ pawns before continuing, “but the vast majority of students are what their house makes them.”

Charles is winning the game so far and his pieces stare down Erik’s with determination. “I,” Charles says, stammering a little in surprise, “I’m glad you agree, Erik. But,” he says, then halts, awkwardly, trying to think of a way of saying this without revealing that he already knows the answer but then changing tack and saying, “when you were sorted, I asked the Sorting Hat why it put you in Slytherin.” As he says this, he sees that he can take Erik’s bishop in two moves and get to checkmate in less than ten. “It told me that you asked it to and I wondered why Erik, why you wanted to be in Slytherin.”

Erik seems utterly unsurprised by Charles’ announcement. Charles had been a little afraid that his friend would be angry with him when he discovered that Charles had been prying into his personal business but he sees no anger in Erik's face. 

“The Sorting Hat” Erik replies, his tone utterly measured, “told me that Slytherin would help me do great things and I intend to do great things, Charles.” Erik doesn’t seem to have noticed that his bishop is doomed and orders it to move back to what appears a more defensible position. The piece is sceptical and tries to disagree with him but Erik silences it with the wave of his hand.

“Well, I hope it helps you to achieve them, my friend. I really do.” 

There is a sadness in Charles voice as he says this and Erik meets his eyes, looking away from the chessboard between them entirely and says “And you, my friend, why did you ask the hat to put you in Hufflepuff?”

“I didn't ask it,” Charles said, smiling, “I told it to put me in whichever house it wanted to. Surely that is the essence of a belief that house doesn’t matter.”

Erik laughs, “Oh Charles,” he says, “House _shouldn’t_ matter but that doesn’t mean that it actually doesn’t.”

“I worried about that, too,” Charles says, “but you’re here after all.” 

He takes the bishop and wins the game in 5 more moves. Erik watches him all the time with what seems like increased interest, as if searching out something in particular.

As they step out of the classroom they’ve been playing in to say their goodnights and go their separate ways, Erik turns to face Charles and they stand, lingering, by the door for a moment. Charles almost begins to speak but Erik leans in and kisses Charles’ cheek, close to his ear, and says, “Goodnight, Charles.”

Charles looks at Erik wide-eyed and can’t quite bring himself to say “goodnight, Erik” so he closes the gap between their lips instead. 

Erik drops the box with his chess pieces in as he buries his fingers in Charles’ hair. 

It’s a long time before they actually say goodnight.

*

“I never know,” Erik says, on the afternoon of a Hogsmeade weekend a little before Christmas, “whether or not I find your unrelenting optimism endearing.” 

They’re sat in a little bubble of artificial heat that Erik conjured using a spell that Charles had never heard of and they’re making illusions in their air over the lake with their wands, lazily creating a whole pageant of dragons, centaurs and harpies which blossom in smoke only to disappear as soon as their misty forms attack one another. 

“I think you must find it endearing,” Charles says, “in spite of yourself, or you wouldn’t have kissed me that day.” 

“Perhaps,” Erik agrees. Charles lays his head on Erik’s shoulder then, their bodies pressed side-to-side as they lean against an enormous tree. “Almost certainly,” Erik corrects himself then, and somewhere in him Charles knows that it’s not that Erik finds Charles endearing - it’s more simple than that: it’s that Erik is constantly amazed by Charles’ belief in him and finds something in it, a self belief of his own, maybe, which makes him cling to Charles. 

*

That Christmas is one of Charles’ favourite memories. Charles is the only student in the whole of Hufflepuff house to stay for the holiday so he and Erik spend their time down in the basement most days. Sometimes talking, sometimes sitting silently, sometimes playing chess. Some days they go to the library together and try to unlock secrets they’d never even guessed existed. And, some nights, Charles takes Erik through the little round door to his dormitory and tells Erik to _stay, please, stay_ and Erik stays.

*

Things begin to sour by the summer. Whilst Charles is helping everyone he has even a passing acquaintance with to prepare for their OWLs, Erik is spending more and more time with books Charles fears have been secreted from the Restricted Section. 

One weekend, whilst they play chess and discuss the question of house unity again, Erik explains once more his view that wizards ought to stick together and that forming the sort of factions constituted by the Hogwarts houses is counterproductive to that aim. 

“We must stand strong together,” Erik says.

This time, Charles asks the question he’s kept back when Erik has said things like this in the past. “The question is, Erik,” he says, moving one of his knights, “what are we to stand strong against?”

“Well, the Muggles, of course.” Erik says, as if it were self-evident, “And, well, the Ministry as well, for that matter, at least until they implement some serious policy changes.”

“I’m not sure I understand what you mean, my friend. Why do we need to stand strong against the Muggles when we can peacefully co-exist?” Charles doesn't really want an answer but he knows he has to ask.

“It isn’t right that we should have to live in secret,” Erik replies, staring down at his chess pieces instead of looking at Charles, “in secret and ashamed. What we have, what we can do, it should be celebrated, not concealed.”

Charles frowns, “Well, I have always been concerned that we ought to have a certain obligation to help Muggles but,” he pauses as Erik commands his queen to take Charles’ bishop, “well, there’s only so much that we can do, really, and I think it would be a bit much to expect the Muggles to just accept the existence of magic after all these years, don’t you think? There would certainly be repercussions.”

Charles wins their game of chess that day, in spite of Erik’s aggressive strategy, but the burden their conversation puts on his mind outweighs any joy at his victory. 

*

The OWL exams aren’t so bad, in the end, Charles thinks, and he enjoys it when the others come to him and ask him to explain exactly how the classification of spells works. Charles can feel the difference between a Charm and a Hex in his fingers, flowing up his wand as he casts them, but he finds it hard to explain the difference in words when he feels it as colours and music. Their textbooks give them answers but his friends don’t come to him because they want a textbook so he shows them instead. He says “what is your intention when you cast the Bat Bogey Hex and how do you feel? Right, and, then, how about a Freezing Charm?”

“Well, what about if you cast a Freezing Charm on someone to hurt them?” Alex asks, brows furrowed.

Charles doesn’t have an easy answer but then he says, “Well, the ice isn’t, of itself, a malicious substance, and the spell isn’t but then,” he frowns, he thinks it would still _feel_ like a Charm. “They won’t ask in the exam but I’ll think about it. Magic is far more complicated than even the OWL exams give it credit for,” Charles says. 

Later, Charles discusses this with Erik and Erik claims that all such definitions are arbitrary and legislative and that there’s no such thing as a bad spell. Charles frowns but can’t articulate his disagreement as well as he’d like to. 

In his Charms OWL, when asked what the definition of a Hex is, he regurgitates the textbook word-for-word. But, in the essay question about acceptable use of Hexes, he goes off on a tangent for a foot and a half of parchment, explaining how he believes that there ought to be more nuance than exists in legislation on the topic and that, additionally, certain Charms that are not classified as Hexes might be used in ways which are as harmful as their less accepted counterparts. He uses the Freezing Charm example and smiles when Alex tells him that their discussion really helped in the exam and says, “Me too,” just as Sean approaches to ask where that afternoon’s practical is going to he held.

*

Going home for the summer feels even harder than usual for Charles that year. He fears that the Erik who gets off the train in his ragged Muggle clothes may not come back at all next year and he’s ill-at-ease when he sits down in a compartment of the Hogwarts Express with his friends from Hufflepuff who all seem to have fantastic plans for the summer.

“What about you, Charles?” Marie asks, smiling at him from under her two-tone hair.

“Oh, hmm, nothing special.” He replies, grateful when the conversation shifts to whether or not they ought to begin studying for their NEWTs over the holidays.

“But we won’t even know for sure if we’ve received the required grades until August.” Ororo protests, when Jean suggests it’s necessary.

“I wouldn’t bother,” Logan puts in, leaning comfortably back in his seat, “I didn’t start until the beginning of term and it’s not so bad.” Charles knows that Logan is finding his NEWTs more stressful than he lets on but he doesn’t challenge him, they all deserve to have a relaxed summer, after all. There was no point in worrying about the NEWTs until they arrived back at Hogwarts.

*

Charles isn’t surprised when his summer turns out to be everything he’d feared. The days are long and the nights longer. 

Erik sends him chess moves and he sends them back. 

Raven goes to visit Hank for a few weeks and Charles is left alone in the house with only his father’s old books and his thoughts for company. 

*

The train journey back to Hogwarts sees most of the new sixth years sharing their OWL results. Both Hank and Moira had received Outstandings in everything, just as Charles had, while most of the rest of his friends from that first year train journey had obtained mainly Exceeds Expectations grades in their subjects. 

Erik refuses to partake in their discussion of grades but Moira tells Charles later that Erik had apparently been called in front of a Ministry committee because he’d not only successfully Vanished his guinea pig in his Transfiguration practical but that he had then proceeded to make it reappear and transfigured it into a fully-functioning carriage clock before turning it back into a guinea pig again with all of its unique patterning remaining quite unaltered. It had been quite the display apparently and the Ministry had not believed the examiner’s report and had wished to see Erik perform such feats in person. 

“Apparently,” Moira reports, in barely more than a whisper as Charles patrols the train with her, “he refused to answer the summons at first and he only agreed to go after he’d spoken to Headmistress McGonagall about it. Armando’s dad works at the Ministry and he told me about it.” 

Erik had gone before the committee in the end, it seemed, and his display made no difference to his Transfiguration result whatsoever - though it had led to an internal review of teaching practices and questions being asked about responsible teaching and not allowing students to go too far beyond the curriculum. 

Charles knew how much this whole affair would reinforce Erik’s feelings about the Ministry. Erik had said so many times that the Ministry was an oppressive and restrictive force and Charles didn’t know what he could say to that or how to bring up the whole Transfiguration OWL affair without letting on the fact that the story had spread across the castle like wildfire during the first few weeks of term.

*

Charles soon discovers that he is not the only student to have requested permission to take more than five NEWTs that year. He is called to the Headmistress’ office along with Erik and Hank on the first morning of classes, after the distribution of timetables. 

“It is to be understood,” McGonagall says, sternly, “that in the case of your being unable to attend a class, you are to study the syllabus -” she looks at Erik, “and only the syllabus - in your own time. The professors for each of your subjects have agreed to have special meetings with you twice each term to monitor your progress. That is all.”

Charles looks down at his timetable and sees, again, how riddled with clashes it is. History of Magic is at the same time as Potions and Muggle Studies clashes with Charms. He frowns. His other subjects are less badly affected, with Transfiguration remaining completely unaffected by his over-filled timetable and only one of his Defence Against the Dark Arts classes is at the same time as Divination. 

The three of them have their first meetings with their professors that very week. Hank isn’t studying for an NEWT in Defence Against the Dark Arts, so Erik and Charles are alone when they step out of the professor’s office a little before dinner is due to begin in the Great Hall. 

They haven’t been alone together since the end of fifth year - since, Charles recalls, a somewhat sordid rendezvous in a broom closet the night before they’d left for summer. He doesn’t bring that up though and tries not to let the remembrance of that night show in his face.

“We’re the same, you and I,” Erik says, looking at Charles with genuine interest but a little bit of uncertainty, “we want the same thing.”

Charles swallows, swallows what he wants to say along with his memories, “I hope so, Erik, I really do.” 

And Erik kisses him there, in the middle of the corridor, just feet from the office that they’ve just left, and Charles tries to object but Erik says “sshh,” and Charles looks and sees, all of a sudden, the shield of magic all around them - a disillusionment charm different from any he’s ever seen before. Erik must have performed it wordlessly. “Sshh,” Erik says, closing the space between their lips again.

*

Charles’ friends in Hufflepuff still don’t understand why he’s friends with Erik and he doesn’t know what they’d say if they knew everything. 

“He’s bad news, Charles,” Ororo says, one afternoon in November, “I hear he has a whole gang of Slytherins who follow him around and do whatever he says. It’s awful. And he’s always in the Restricted Section, pouring over books that I’m sure he doesn’t have permission to read.”

“I heard,” pipes up Scott, “that he lives in a Muggle orphanage like Voldemort did.” 

“I heard,” says Jean, more deadpan and serious than Scott, “that he killed someone before he came to Hogwarts and that they almost didn’t let him in.”

“I heard it was his parents,” Scott returns.

“This is ridiculous,” Charles says, shutting _A Time of Turmoil: Muggle-Wizard Relations in the Twentieth Century_ , and giving them all a disapproving look. “Erik wouldn’t hurt anyone. I admit that he’s not always as friendly as he could be but it’s difficult for him - he’s brilliant and he doesn’t have an outlet, he’s--” Charles doesn’t know what he was going to say to start with but realises, all of a sudden, what they are all trying to imply, “he’s nothing like Voldemort. Nothing.” 

They’re all staring at him as though everything he said was senseless and foolish. “He’s not like that at all,” Charles repeats. “He’s not.” 

Logan scoffs from the corner of the common room where he’s writing an essay for Charms. Charles picks up his book and heads out of the door without looking back.

*

He hates himself for feeling that he has to do it but Charles asks all the others what they think of Erik after that. 

Moira is hesitant, says “Well, Charles, he is a little, how can I say this? I think,” she continues, furrowing her brows, “I think he’s probably dangerous and not just, I mean, dangerous to everyone, to himself and to everyone around him and,” she stops again, straightening her robes with her hands nervously, “I think to you most of all, Charles. I know you want him to be, I don’t know, someone like you, someone who uses his abilities to help others but,” she bites her lip, “I think that might be too much to hope for, really.” She looks imploringly at Charles as though she really wants him to cut her off so he thanks her and wishes her luck with her exams and tells her that he’s there for her, whenever she needs him. 

Sean just shrugs when Charles asks him in the middle of the practical portion of Charms. They’re working together at a table, along with Alex and Armando, and Sean says, “Well, I guess he’s always been kind of weird and he is in Slytherin but I don’t really get why people are scared at him.”

“Guy’s got a terrifying stare,” Armando says, as he attempts the Immobulus Charm on his snail, “and I heard a first year say she thought he was Tom Riddle reborn once.”

“That’s not even possible,” Charles says, frowning.

“Hey, I’m just reporting what I heard.”

“I don’t think Erik’s so bad,” Alex puts in, “he’s just really good at magic, right? And he doesn’t really have any friends. You excepted, Charles, of course.”

He tries to speak to Hank about it when Hank approaches him about their Muggle Studies assignment but Hank doesn’t seem interested in the discussion, instead continuing to ask what Charles thinks about the adoption of Muggle inventions by Wizarding users. “After all, we’ve always adopted Muggle technology, it’s just that, with the ever-quickening pace of advancement in Muggle inventions, we’ve ended up left behind. It’s impractical for us to ignore the advances that many of these technologies could lead to for the Wizarding community.” It is an interesting discussion but Charles finds it hard to buy into, nonetheless, because he’s too distracted by the questions he wants to ask Hank about Erik.

Raven is the hardest to get hold of and is even less forthcoming than her boyfriend had been. She just shrugs and says “I don’t know why you’re talking to me, Charles, we never talk. You only talk to me when you need something. Just leave it.” And Charles knew it was true. He’d always relied on Raven when he was younger because she’d been the only person he had; and then, when they’d gone to Hogwarts and he’d been in Hufflepuff and she hadn’t, he’d never made the effort to reach out. 

“I’m sure Erik’s truly fascinating and everything but it just,” Raven continued, a little repentantly, and Charles was half-surprised that she hadn’t walked off already, “it would have been nice if you’d opened the conversation with ‘hi Raven, how are you?’, you know? Anyway, I’ll see you around, Charles.” She walks off then, signalling her farewell with a single raised hand, and leaves Charles to consider how badly he’s dealt with her and with everything.

*

“You look at me differently these days,” Erik observes, as they play another game of chess in another anonymous classroom, “I’d say ‘I wonder why’ but I think that I already know. Is it,” he says, pausing and wetting his lips with his tongue, “perhaps because of the things everyone’s been saying about me?” 

Charles is shocked and sits a little straighter in his seat at the words. 

“I know what they’re saying. They say all sorts but it’s the comparisons with Voldemort which really get me - I suppose you’ve heard them, too. Yes, you have, I can see it in your face. Of course, you know, too, that I’m nothing like him. Voldemort was self-centred, self-aggrandising and foolish and he believed that _blood_ made the difference. _Blood_.”

Charles knows, can see it in Erik’s eyes, can tell that he wants to say that it’s _power_ that makes the difference. Power not blood. Erik had no Wizarding blood but there was more magic in his veins than in any Pure Blood wizard Charles had ever met. 

“Please, Erik,” he says, instead, “I don’t want to discuss this.” He orders his castle across the board before looking up into his friend’s face, “I know that you’re not like Voldemort.” He swallows and looks down, “I’ve always known it.” 

He’s afraid though, later, afraid of what Erik might have admitted to, if he’d let him continue. He’s afraid that Erik might have said that he approved of some of what Tom Riddle had attempted. He tries to push the thought away but doesn’t quite succeed.

*

“I-” Charles says, one afternoon in April. It’s a Hogsmead weekend and they’re alone in the dormitory. There are probably first and second years in the common room but he knows that Erik will have no trouble walking through on his way out without attracting attention. He knows that should bother him but it doesn’t, it doesn’t at all. “I should probably work on my Muggle Studies assignment,” he finishes, smiling at Erik, who’s in bed beside him in the sixth year dormitory.

“I don’t understand it, Charles,” Erik says, condescension creeping into his voice, “why you think they’re worth studying. We have nothing to learn from Muggles. They are the ones who ought to look to us for knowledge.”

Charles frowned, “No, Erik, I think we have a lot to learn from Muggles and I think that any form of integration would be a slow and difficult process. We can’t expect Muggles to look to us for guidance any time soon.”

“Integration isn’t what I was suggesting.” Erik replies, tersely. 

“You don’t mean,” Charles says, his look darkening considerably, “that we ought to rule over the Muggles?” It's not that he hasn't considered this before, that he hasn't worried that this was the point underlining all he'd ever allowed Erik to say about Muggle-Wizard relations but it hits him harder than he'd even imagined to hear Erik actually say it.

Erik looks solemnly at Charles, as though he’s sad to have to explain it to him, “Well, they have oppressed us for hundreds of years and we are -”

“Things are fine as they are, Erik.” Charles says, rising to dress, feeling more wretched than he could possibly have imagined feeling an hour ago. “We can fight for small changes, legislative alterations to help with integration but -”

“You don’t understand, do you, Charles?” Erik returns, still laying languidly on Charles’ bed, “What the Muggles would do to us if they knew? Didn’t you write that research essay for Binns on the oppression of wizards in the 17th century? You wrote to me about it, I think, you can’t have forgotten all that.”

“I haven’t forgotten but I’d like to think that it could be different.” Charles buttons his white shirt all the way to the collar and pulls on his black school robes over the top.

“You’re a fool, Charles.” Erik says, as Charles leaves the dormitory. 

Charles closes the door quietly behind him and sits on the other side for half a minute, trying not to cry, before he walks out into the common room. 

*

And yet they still keep meeting and playing chess and nothing really changes. Some nights Erik will catch hold of Charles’ arm after playing and they’ll kiss and Charles will almost forget that he and Erik should be enemies by rights, not friends, and certainly not lovers. But he never quite forgets, he can’t, not when he feels the scars on Erik’s skin, underneath his clothes. 

_Forgiveness,_ Charles thinks, _isn’t quite the same thing as forgetfulness and everyone deserves to be forgiven, if they can be._

*

At the end of sixth year, Hank and Raven split up. Charles had noticed Raven looking different recently, moving away from the face she seemed to have settled on and trying out new features. He’d walked past her in the Charms corridor once and wouldn’t have recognised her but for her Ravenclaw prefect’s badge. 

She doesn’t come to Charles about it but he sees her talking to Erik in the Entrance Hall near the doors to the Great Hall one day and overhears Erik say: “You’re beautiful, just as you are. You don’t need to make yourself what other people want you to be”. He feels jealous for only an instant before he realises that he should be the one telling her those things, not Erik. He was meant to look out for her, they were meant to stick together and he’s just failed to see any of it. 

“It was very kind, what you said to Raven,” Charles tells Erik, later, having intentionally followed Erik from the Great Hall, halfway through pudding that night.

“It was very true,” Erik replies and walks away without waiting for Charles to say anything else. 

It’s difficult for him to swallow the lump in his throat then and he can’t go back to the Great Hall so, instead, he descends the steps to the Hufflepuff basement and reads _The Statue of Secrery: A Secret History_ until he realises that it’s hard to see through the mist of tears. 

*

Seventh year dawns like a new sun and Charles tries to think of it as a new day. Raven hadn’t spoken to him all summer and she’d gone away for three weeks and refused to tell him where she was going. His enormous family home felt emptier than ever and it had ached to count down the days. He and Erik continued to play chess by owl post but Erik’s replies were sometimes delayed by as long as a week and he never sent more than his move.

Charles had spent much of the summer writing to a number of Ministry offices in hopes of obtaining copies of various legislative bills. It had taken until the 23rd of August for him to obtain a full manuscript of the statute of secrecy and he’d only managed to get through the first twelve foot or so of the immense scroll before he’d had to prepare for his return to Hogwarts. 

On the train, he sees his friends only at a distance, fractured into their new groups, and he stands apart from all of them as he patrols the train alone.

Between patrols of the corridors, he pulls the statute from his trunk and begins to read it and his heart sinks with every clause. 

*

_He’s afraid of them,_ Charles realises. It’s a beautiful day in autumn and sunbeams filter in through the high windows in the Hufflepuffs’ basement common room. _He’s afraid of Muggles._

He’s writing an essay about the Muggle education system as he thinks this. He tries to concentrate on the parallels between their curricula but his mind can’t help but wander, thinking about what might have happened to Erik to make him so afraid of Muggles and what would happen if Muggles ever became aware of the existence of the Wizarding World. 

_He has been at their mercy,_ he realises, _and he just cannot bear to be put in that position again._ He thinks he must have known it all along, really, but maybe it was just one of those things he dismissed as something he shouldn’t know.

After he’s handed in the essay, he seeks out Erik. He finds him in the library and they sit together in companionable silence until it’s closed and then Charles presses Erik up against the stacks in the Restricted Section and covers his skin with unspoken apologies. 

He doesn’t ask Erik questions, doesn’t try to get the truth in words from Erik’s lips and, really, he doesn’t need to. 

*

They’d had Careers Advice sessions in fifth year, sitting down with their Head of House and getting guidance about their choices for their NEWTs. In fifth year Charles had said something stupid, stupidly idealistic, about how he wanted to research where magic came from. Muggles, he said, had these ways of looking at the world - science: chemistry, physics, biology - and trying to find out how things worked. 

The Head of Hufflepuff had laughed at him but handed him a leaflet called _Careers in the Department of Mysteries: Life as an Unspeakable_ along with a stack of other leaflets and advice not to squander his talents on Muggle ‘science’. 

Now, in seventh year, Charles feels his stance is more pragmatic. His discussions with Erik have led him to research all sorts of areas of Ministry policy and he’s already in contact with the heads of several Ministry departments and a member of the International Confederation of Wizards. He realises now that he’ll have to become a part of the Ministry in order to change anything and he feels uncertain and sceptical but he also knows that he has to do it.

Erik won’t talk about his plans for after Hogwarts but he is vocal about his disapproval of Charles’. 

“The Ministry is a rotten institution. It’s kept us down and limited us for hundreds of years,” he says. 

*

“The Ministry reinforces the doctrine that blood is the foundation of magic.” Erik asserts, on a mild Saturday night in March. They're playing chess atop the Astronomy Tower. It’s not, strictly speaking, allowed but the view is phenomenal and Charles knows they won't be caught. “You may claim that Pius Thicknesse’s administration was marked by fear and that the Ministry officials who co-operated with the Muggle-Born Registration Committee were in some way under duress and not invested in that ideology but, Charles, really, they were so quick to agree, so willing to go along with it. They didn’t fight against it. They didn't object.” 

Erik is looking out at the sky and not at Charles as he says this but Charles keeps his eyes on Erik’s face throughout, seeing how he swallows the lump in his throat and squeezes his eyes shut before continuing. 

“They imprisoned hundreds of Muggle-Borns in Azkaban because they were in possession of magic - magic which the Ministry and its officials coveted and wished to keep for themselves. It’s unconscionable and the Ministry would do it again, Charles. It wouldn’t take much. In your heart, you know that. The sentiment is still there, even if it is no longer being acted on.”

The chessboard sits, forgotten, between them and Charles says, “I know,” and then, again, “I know but that doesn’t mean that they can’t make the right choices, too, if they are offered them.”

They sit in silence for a time before Erik says, “You could come with me, instead, you know.”

“I’m sorry,” Charles says, “but I could not.”

*

Throughout summer term, Charles is terribly aware of how often he sees Erik and his group of associates disappear into empty classrooms, shifty and furtive. They’re mostly Slytherins but Raven is with them, too, and a Gryffindor fifth year who Charles thinks is called John. 

He tries not to think about it, tries not to let it distract him from his exams and everything else he has to think about. 

They have their final meetings with their Professors in May, before the start of their exams. After the Defence Against the Dark Arts meeting, Erik says “good luck, Charles” and smiles a reserved smile and then walks away. Charles wants to say something but realises, painfully, that he doesn’t have anything to say to Erik now. 

*

They graduate in the summer without any incident. 

On the train back to London, all of them but Erik, Raven, and Angel find a compartment together and discuss the future. Both Alex and Sean have offers from professional Quidditch teams; Armando’s going to join Scott and Logan - who graduated the previous year - in Auror training; and Charles, Hank and Moira are all bound for office jobs at the Ministry. 

It is a wonderful feeling: the motion of the steam engine, the knowledge that they are all finally going out into the world to change things and to be the people they were always meant to be. 

The empty seats where the others should be cast a terrible shadow though and there’s a part of Charles that feels he’s going the wrong way. He wants to go back to when he was eleven and make Erik tell him everything. He wants to go back to that first summer after Hogwarts and be Raven’s brother again. He wants to tell Angel that he doesn’t care if she’s ashamed to be seen with him - he still wants to know her. With every new mile’s distance from Hogwarts, Charles thinks of something else he wants to change and, with every mile, he feels more impotent to do it.

*

Charles is 27 when he finally puts his name in for consideration as the next Minister for Magic. The incumbent has resigned and the signs have all been there in Charles’ career. He’s been Head of the Muggle Liaison Office since he was 24 and had a seat on the International Confederation for almost as long.

He’s not surprised when, after the announcement in the _Daily Prophet_ , he receives a letter from Erik Lehnsherr. He hasn’t heard directly from Erik for years - since an ill-advised evening in a bar where he’d hoped for so many impossible things. The letter reads: “I had hope, old friend, that it would not come to this.”

*

They meet in a Muggle café and play chess on an old wooden chess set with chipped, inanimate pieces and two mismatched pawns. Erik tells Charles that it’s not too late to change his mind, to accept his offer, to join the Brotherhood. 

“We could be together, you and I.” Erik says. He’s losing the game. Charles has a whole row of black pieces lined up on his side of the board to the three that Erik’s taken of his. “We are not, after all, so different.”

“I’m afraid that we are, old friend. I cannot join you in a fight which might involve the death of innocents.”

Erik sighs, contemplating his move and says, with complete calm in his voice: “None of them are innocent.”

“They are all innocent, Erik. They do not even know of the wrong they do you. I cannot let you harm them.”

“I had such hopes for you once, Charles,” Erik says, voice deep with sadness.

“And I for you.”

“And they not quite dead.”

“And nor are mine.”

“Consider my offer, Charles,” Erik says, rising and moving his remaining white knight before walking out of the café without a backward glance.

Charles stares at the board, bewildered, for a moment, before he realises that it’s checkmate - that Erik has won - and he feels a bizarre and unwarranted elation bubble up inside of him. It is the same game, he realises, the same game they’d played that night in the fifth year - the night they’d first kissed. Charles wasn’t sure whether Erik had known the trick to winning it all those years ago but he suspects that, in all probability, Erik had known all along. He suspects, in all probability, that Erik had known it all.

*

He calls Raven, the night he is officially inaugurated as Minister of Magic. He knows that all the members of the Brotherhood have modified Muggle mobile phones which run on magic. Erik is too mistrustful of Muggle technology to rely on it fully but he harnesses it when he has a use for it, all the same. The phones are highly illegal, Charles knows, and they’ve seen a number of them in the Misuse of Muggle Artefacts Office, but he can see no other way or contacting her. 

He calls from a phone box, putting his wand to the receiver and thinking her name until it rings.

“Raven, it’s Charles,” he says, when she picks up, and then, without hesitating, “I need you to pass a message on to Erik.”

“What makes you think I--”

“Please, Raven.”

“Fine, what is it?” She says, voice all impatience.

“Tell him that I’m sorry and that I wish it weren’t like this. That I believe in him. That I’m going to do everything in my power to improve the Ministry, whatever the cost. Tell him that my doors are always open to him in good faith. But, mostly, that I am sorry and,” Charles swallows but knows that now is not the time to back down or lie or to conceal the truth, “that I love him.”

There’s silence down the line for a moment until Raven says, attempting flat nonchalance: “is that all?”

*

Raven relays the message a few hours later, barely able to keep herself from lying or withholding some of it.

“Charles says he’s sorry. He didn’t want it to be this way,” she says. 

Erik sits behind his desk at the Brotherhood’s temporary headquarters. Raven stands in front of it. 

“He said that he believed in you but also that he was going to do everything he could for the Ministry - in spite of what it might cost. He said that his door was always open to you and he said,” She pauses, suddenly nervous.

“And he said?” Erik asks, frowning.

“Mostly just that he’s sorry and that” she screws her face into a disdainful expression, “he loves you.”

“Leave,” Erik says, “now.” It takes everything in him not to perform _Obliviate_ on her, to make her forget all of this. Instead, he merely compels her to leave with a silent spell then calls his man in the Ministry to confirm that they’re going ahead with tomorrow’s operation. 

He thinks to himself that he is not the man Charles believes in, not the man Charles loves, but he knows it’s a lie. It makes things harder, more complicated, but he reminds himself: this was never meant to be easy.

Still, he writes a letter with “Pawn to e4” on it and gives it to his owl before he settles down to sleep and awaits Charles’ next move with interest.

*

Charles spends his time as Minister attempting to push through unpopular bills and to avoid awkward questions about Erik and the Brotherhood.

His year as Minister is the worst of his life and he resigns the post after 13 months feeling broken and miserable. 

His flagship policies about integration without breech of the Statute of Secrecy were derided equally in the _Prophet_ and the corridors of power. He’d suggested that Wizarding children ought to attend Muggle primary schools to help them to understand life outside of the Wizarding community and he’d pushed to have the Department of Mysteries consider the extensive corpus of research undertaken by Muggles as suitable material for study. 

He was a fool and a laughing stock and the worst Minister since Cornelius Fudge and, some said, even worse than that. 

*

Charles is unsurprised when Erik is waiting for him outside his house that night. The official announcement hasn’t even made the papers yet but Erik has his spies, Charles knows. And there is Erik, stood beside his garden gate, smiling at him.

“It’s not what you think, Erik,” Charles says, unlatching the gate with one hand and pushing it open. He feels downtrodden, broken.

Erik lays a hand on his shoulder and says, “Charles I—”

But when Charles looks up into his face and replies “Please, Erik”, Erik obligingly disappears with a ‘pop’ that almost startles him. 

It is a long time before the feeling of Erik’s hand on his shoulder really goes away.

*

Charles spends the next 18 months travelling to other nations to observe Muggle-Wizard relations and, if he’s honest with himself, mostly to escape. It’s July and he’s in Argentina when he receives an owl from Minerva McGonagall. She’s retiring after over 70 years at Hogwarts and she says that Hogwarts could use a man of his abilities and with his open-minded approach to Wizarding education. 

Arranging the portkey is hellish but Charles still makes it to Hogwarts before his written reply does. 

*

He spends the summer at Hogwarts, putting things in order and meeting the new members of staff. Pomona Sprout has retired since he left Hogwarts and she’s been replaced by Neville Longbottom, a retired Auror and hero of the second war against Voldemort. 

He has a few staff vacancies to fill and he does so easily. He installs Ororo Munroe as Astronomy Professor and Head of Hufflepuff House. He’d feel guilty about it if she hadn’t been the best interview candidate by far. 

The position of Defence Against the Dark Arts Professor is harder to fill. The supposed ‘curse’ still lingers over the post and, when Charles realises no one is likely to apply, he puts his own name forward. There are a few raised eyebrows at this because the Headmaster does not traditionally teach classes but the dissenters are quieted when Charles insists that a the Headmaster of Hogwarts ought to know his students: to be someone they know and trust, not just a figurehead. 

*

On the 31st of August, Charles meets with Erik in the Three Broomsticks. The chessboard sits between them like a ghost from the past. 

“Tomorrow, you will be Headmaster of Hogwarts, Charles,” Erik says, smiling, “Really, this is more like what I expected of you.”

“You’re pleased?” Charles asks, surprised.

“I think you can do a lot of good there.” Charles can see from the open expression of Erik's face that his words aren't patronising and it isn't a lie.

“And, you, Erik, what do you intend to do?” Charles asks, as he directs his first pawn across the board.

“Why, to change the world, of course,” Erik says, with a dry laugh, and sends his second pawn forward to meet it.

 

They stay there that night and, as they stare up at the wooden ceiling beams, Charles says, “They were the happiest days of my life. Those days at Hogwarts. With you. I thought it would tear me apart when I left.”

Erik swallows. Charles thinks he might be crying but he doesn’t look, he can’t let himself. “I thought so, too. But we can’t go back, you know that don’t you?”

“I know,” Charles says. “That’s not why I--”

“I know.” 

Charles looks at Erik then, Erik whose eyes are still fixed on the ceiling, and he thinks of all the things they never said, the things they don’t speak about, and knows that talking about them now won’t change anything. 

“Did you know,” Charles says, laughing a little, “that you’re still my best friend?”

“You’re the only friend I ever had,” Erik says, finally looking at Charles. They both laugh then. 

“Tell me something,” Charles says then, suddenly serious, “Do you think this could ever have been different? That we could have been—”

“No.” Erik says, unhesitatingly, “No. Those dice had been rolled long before we stepped foot on that train. You could never have gone with me and I could never have stayed. This is all we can ever have, you and I. This.”

It’s enough, somehow, Charles thinks. He doesn’t say anything but he lets himself think it. Just this, it can be enough.


End file.
